Housing & Homelessness Advisory Committee (HHAC) Annual 2019 Report to City Council

HHAC Mandate:

"To serve as an advisory body to City Council on issues relating to the supply, demand, and need for affordable housing and homelessness supports in Windsor and Essex County. Act as a medium for informational exchange with sector representatives on housing and homelessness program initiatives and community issues. Act as a resource and advocate on behalf of all stakeholders to educate and advance the awareness of Council representatives on matters pertaining to housing and homelessness. Responsible for championing the implementation of the 10 Year Housing and Homelessness Master Plan and for evaluating and monitoring progress towards meeting the goals and strategies of the Plan."

History of HAC

Over the past 8-year term of HAC, the city and county were able to harness millions of dollars for a number of homeless and housing initiatives; e.g. Increasing rental housing capital and social housing repair, Ontario Renovates, Housing First, Home Ownership Down payment and Rent Supplement. Therefore, our HAC meetings were more about how funds were spread over the whole housing portfolio; we identified gaps; we reviewed the CHR-WEC waiting list and set priorities within that list. This meant we relied on our Resource staff and HAC members to keep us informed and review take-up on all these programs which informed decisions if funds needed to be shifted from one program to another. This certainly worked for us and we saw successes throughout the portfolio. HAC was presented with information from 2015-2018 on the homelessness programs, funding and initiatives in Windsor Essex, however, I do believe we were somewhat isolated from the work of the Homelessness sector.

With a new federal government in 2016 and the anticipation that the tide would also change provincially we knew the housing landscape would also see major changes. With our own Municipal election late last year, we saw 4 new councilors and our HAC committee saw 6 new members appointed by council. Right from our first meeting in 2019, it became evident that we needed to better integrate, collaborate and partner with the homelessness sector. HAC put forth the names of two people from that sector and they joined HAC in 2019 and our name became The Housing & Homelessness Advisory Committee (HHAC). The mandate of HHAC was broadened to include homelessness and our agendas have significantly changed to align with the Windsor Essex 10-year Housing and Homelessness Master Plan and reflect both funding and identified local needs over the next four years.